Mongabay Series: Illegal Deforestation in the Amazon
Between 2016 and 2020, 26 new cattle slaughterhouses were registered within the Brazilian Amazon, bringing the total number of meat packers in the region to 183, a worrying news story, as farm animal husbandry is the main factor of deforestation in the Amazon. . , generates giant amounts of greenhouse gases and is guilty of a third of the slave labour instances in Brazil, but knowledge – received exclusively through the environmental journalism platform ((o)) echo and researchers of the Imazon conservation agreement, which has been tracking the sector since the 1990s – raised concern: while 50% of humanity has moved away from preventing the proliferation of COVID-19 , those meat things may be at zero for the next pandemic.
“It’s like we’re sleeping in a minefield and getting up and wandering aimlessly, a habit that can blow up a bomb at any time,” says Ana Lacia Tourinho, ecologist and researcher at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT). “Meat packers will have to go through a remediation restructuring because they are time bombs and centers for the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases. “
The existing pandemic has obviously shown that the mixture of cold environments needed to keep meat and production lines overcrowded makes meat-packing plants hot spots for the proliferation of the new coronavirus. In the United States, 115 plants reported COVID-19 outbreaks among their employees. 30 of which had to prevent production due to the seriousness of the situation. These come with plants operated through JBS and Marfrig, the world’s two largest meat packers. In Brazil, the Ministry of Labour (MPT) conducted infection investigation among staff of 61 meat processors in 11 states.
But COVID-19 is the only disease that expands in that environment.
Abattoirs are also ideal places for the emergence of new viruses and bacteria due to the forced proximity of humans and animals, where staff come into contact with the blood and intestines of the species. ‘If I had to install a mechanism for the fitness tracking service to stumble upon new viruses, I would definitely do so in internal meat packing plants,’ says veterinarian Carlos Abraho, an invasive species specialist who advocates the precept of a single health that considers the environment, humans and animal fitness to be inextricably linked.
60% of all new infectious diseases are of animal origin, scientists determined. Coronaviruses are a particularly harmful category because there is already evidence that SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, has been adapted to infect humans. possibly comes from a bat or snake sold at a market in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.
The main thing about this inter-species jump is habitat deforestation where wildlife once lived undisturbed. According to a USAID study, 31% of cases in which diseases spread from animals to humans occurred because their herbal environments were invaded and destroyed.
The Amazon, where record rates of deforestation were recorded in the first quarter of 2020 (a domain of nearly the length of New York City ravaged between January and March), is home to the world’s largest biodiversity. 160 species of bats are known, and researchers have discovered 3204 other types of coronavirus in bat populations throughout Brazil.
Forest maintenance is essential because plants act as a barrier to the dispersion of these microorganisms. “The more varied a region is, the safer it is in epidemiological terms,” Abrahao says. “In the Amazon, it is general to have only a few Americans of a species in a limited domain. This makes it difficult for a virus or parasite to move from one population to another because they are isolated. The challenge is when you erase the domain and introduce a lot of Americans of a single species, such as cattle, for example.
On average, two-thirds of the forests cut down each year in the Brazilian Amazon become grasslands and livestock is not only used to delimit the territory, a tactic used by land hoarders to invade public lands and then sell them illegally. but also those who truly live on livestock. In this case, the business materializes both local shops and meat giants who sell their products to supermarket chains in Brazil and abroad.
Large meat packers operating in the Amazon are under pressure to ensure that their production is free of animals raised in illegally deforested areas, but the measures taken by industry to ensure this, adding legal agreements, have not been effective in achieving their goal. Over the next year, foreign investors have demanded that Brazilian meat processors deforest their chains of origin, but JBS, Marfrig and Minerva, the 3 giants leading the beef industry, continue to earn foreign income, investment and loans even though their 41 Operations in the Amazon are not 100 percent deforestation-free. In 2017, the 3 corporations accounted for 42% of active logging capacity in the forest. Amazon ranks first, fifth, and tenth in its deforestation exposure classification.
The pandemic has evidently shown that the activities of these corporations in the Amazon pose an even greater threat than deforestation; if a new virus appeared in these meat-packing plants, it could temporarily spread to Brazil and other countries, damaging not only meat. sector, but the economy as a whole. But the industry does not seem to be aware of the danger posed by public health. “This is still a long way from the investor radar,” says Monica de Bolle, an economist and professor at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. “We still don’t know enough how these new viruses come out and spread. Brazilian and American entrepreneurs and politicians use popular communication to say that this is an immediate and brief crisis. She’s disconnected from reality. “
In fact, the Brazilian beef industry has conducted well in the monetary marketplace the crisis. Despite expectancies of a decline in GDP in 2020, Marfrig stocks traded at their highest worth since 2011 on May 13. Minerva announced its biggest net virtue in the last 12 months between January and March, and its newest report to shareholders was optimistic: “Looking forward to quarters, strong foreign call for and source disorders among other beef exporters will have a tendency to directly get merits South American players, consolidating the region as the world’s leading manufacturer of beef. Minerva Foods… is in a position to take merit of the opportunities that will be created. “
More cautious JBS: in its quarterly report, it notes the closure of its televisions in Brazil and the United States and states that “at the moment, there is no way to pin down the medium- and long-term effects on the economic situation and from January to May, its percentage value fell by 19. 2%, but it remains higher than that of other market giants such as Atacadeo , Ambev and Petrobras.
In China, swine flu, industry war with the United States, and the approval of new Brazilian meat packers to export to the Asian giant have boosted sales of Brazilian beef abroad. From January to April 2020, exports to China doubled compared to the same time last year. After declining sales in February, when the pandemic was declared, sales in China accelerated and returned strongly in March. “In the medium and long term, I think the trend will be towards a physically more powerful beef export sector in Brazil,” says José Clavijo, Refinitiv’s agricultural raw materials analyst, who produces knowledge and reports for investors.
In March, the Brazilian stock market had to press the switch and freeze its trades six times during a 10-day era, a move taken when inventory costs fall too low to be absorbed by the market. may be the new popular for the money market. Indeed, the effects of the inventory market as a result of the pandemic are similar to those that can be repeated as climate emergencies increase over time.
“It is transparent that there are differences, but climate replacement can also lead to a humanitarian and monetary crisis similar to that caused by COVID-19: the physical structures of destroyed nations, for example, or the damage caused by floods or a long drought. “, says Cole Martin of Fitch Solutions, which helps companies and investors identify hazards and customers in sectors of the economy.
The Bank for International Settlements (BPI), a Swiss-based establishment known as the central bank of central banks, agrees. According to the organization’s deputy director general, Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, COVID-19 “presents a bright picture of what in the long run it will be if nothing is done with greenhouse gases. “
The fossil fuel sector was the first to feel the impact: For the first time in history, the value of a barrel of oil in the United States fell below $ 0 to $ 37. 63, which means that manufacturers were paying buyers to take care of their excess. percentage values have what the money market calls frozen assets. “Bad assets were once a niche idea,” Emily Chasan, Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief on sustainable finance, wrote last April. “We have noticed that the prophecy came true in weeks in the oil and fuel sector. “
With forecasts of a 3% decline in the world economy this year, the largest in nearly a century, the streets and institutions may remain empty even after house orders reopen and lift. “Empty restaurants. Theaters and hotels closed. Airplanes damaged. At least for now, all those pieces can be classified as bad assets, subject of sudden devaluations and operating losses, “Chasan wrote.
The precautionary symptoms for the farm animals industry are clear: adjustments in consumer behavior with the pandemic. Russia has suspended exports of certain food products to prioritize the source of its domestic market, and in East Africa, fears about food security have led others to buy local fish than Chinese imports. In Asia, interest in plant proteins is developing, sales of which remain low compared to beef.
And now there is also the risk of contaminants in the production environment and considerations about long-term epidemics as the meat packaging industry spreads across the Amazon, all of which adds to the problem of the past: the higher volumes of greenhouse fuel emissions related to the meat production chain. In 2018, farm animal husbandry produced 19% of emissions in Brazil, a figure that rises to 45% if deforestation is included in the Amazon.
But none of this has been enough to sound the alarm of corporations or investment firms, which seem to have nothing to do with the dangers associated with financing meat processors in the Amazon. “When you tell an investor that they will lose cash in the medium term with oil and fossil fuels because those assets will freeze, they know exactly what the assets are and where they are,” says Natalie Unterstell of Talanoa Solutions, a specialized consultancy. climate change. ” Deforestation is much more diffuse. People even associate deforestation with climate change, but it is more difficult for an investor to perceive that monetary product is also related to deforestation. “
This is a behavior already known through the BIS, whose analysts warn that pandemic and climate replacement are “green swans”, a term used to describe hazards that will most likely materialize but are too complex to be fully understood.
Investor reaction to considerations about the beef industry is the reaction scientists gained when, in 2007, they highlighted the maximum probability of a coronavirus outbreak: they were ignored. “I’m looking for other people to know that this has happened. going down since the last 1990s. We play with clinical knowledge,” says Tourinho of UFMT.
Only time will tell how it’s going. ” With 0. 1% of the budget spent on the pandemic today, we can create a global formula to avoid this kind of problem,” says Abrahao, the vet. “It’s enough to invest it”. in the right things, that is, fundamental science, studies and public aptitude, not having COVID-19. It also implies greater attention to nature, as human, animal and environmental fitness is interdependent.
Marfrig, meat packer (read the complete one here):
Marfrig says it has followed a number of COVID-19 prevention and surveillance measures in all its production sets and offices, adding daily measurements of frame temperature for the 18,000 highest painters and painting periods between paint shifts. The company reinforces the fact that it is tracking its livestock suppliers in the Amazon to avoid buying livestock on illegally deforested land. Marfrig also cites projects to publicize the rearing of low-carbon farm animals, adding an unprecedented partnership with EMBRAPA (the Brazilian Agricultural Research Society) to encourage the adoption of more sustainable practices among herders.
Minerva, meat packer (read full here):
Minerva says it operates under a rigorous emergency plan to protect the fitness of its workers and ensure production protection, while ensuring the public’s food supply. Processing plants operate at 70% of their ability to maintain some safe distance during operations, workers are evaluated as to the effects imaginable on investors, the corporation states that Brazil is well placed to satisfy the wishes of the global market, as all plants adhere to inflexible remediation controls and are monitored through inspectors at the Federal Inspection Service (SIF) site , which is part of the Ministry of Agriculture.
JBS, meat packer (read the full one here and here):
JBS states that all livestock farms that obtain the corporate are monitored through satellite imagery and georeferenced knowledge of the property, all houses where deforestation occurred are excluded, and the corporation claims to have followed a rigorous protocol of monitoring and prevention of COVID-19. as a whole since the beginning of the pandemic. This protocol includes all workers of high-risk equipment on site, measuring the temperature and distance of the worker’s frame.
This report is the third in a series that examines the dating between the money market and the Brazilian beef industry. If you want to tap the editor with a history suggestion, type to: [email protected].
This story was originally published in Portuguese through (or)) echo.
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